Long Sidewalk

Happy Summer! Whoops, I guess it's Fall. I got to go out for a few bike rides this Summer, so I saved up a bunch of pictures to comment about. It's not too chilly out yet, you can still imagine nice warm days.

Back in good 'ole Virginia Beach. It's been a while since we've bike-ride-ed here. Check out this nice wide looooong sidewalk path. There might not be anything exciting on this path, but the path itself is nice, and that's something.

Duckies! It's nice to see ducks have actual families. There's the parents and the kids all together. Are ducks better than people at this point? Haha, that's a joke. People still have families, like this, these days... Right?

Nice water. Is that a river? Lake? Um... Channel? Do I need to go back to class and learn my water-thing names? I know it's not the ocean. 

There's the old movie theatre on the way to the beach. It was famous for being open or closed or probably closed but maybe open, depending on how long ago you checked. Right now it looks closed.

Zoom in and read the plaque about The Wave sculpture that greets visitors to The Beach. The street circles around it awkwardly, creating a fun puzzle for bike riders as they navigate crossing. Reminds me of the old video game Frogger.

Drive here for twenty bucks, or ride your bike for free! People in Virginia Beach are not used to paying for parking, but visitors might be coming from places where that's more of a common thing. It sucks but there's only so much space for parking, I guess they gotta charge for it...

Live band on the stage! There was some kind of festival going on. It's not like this all the time, but often.

There's Neptune! This landmark statue is probably not as big as you imagine it is, but still impressive. Look at him palm that turtle like it was a basketball. The turtle doesn't have an official name, or even an unofficial name. I think the city is missing out on some merchandising opportunities there.

Ocean! When you look out and really soak in the view, you can really see... That's A LOT OF WATER!! Virgina Beach has got a pretty good amount of sand between the boardwalk and the water, the beach can comfortably host a ton of people.

Aside from Neptune, there's a lot of random sculptures up and down the beach. Plenty of photo ops for tourists. Or... Blogging ponies.

26th Street! I think that's where we turned around on this particular bike trip. I have a few trip's-worth of pictures here.

Virginia Beach has random standard dolphin statues, all painted and decorated in different unique styles, spread out all across the city. Creating a sort of scavanger hunt opportunity. Here's a fancy one.

Hah. Far away from the beach. This bike ride was clearly on another day. This is my friend's old high school. I think it's lazy to say "over 50 State Championships" it makes them seem lazy that they can't get a new sign each time with the exact number. Or even specify what those championships are for. Maybe they won the State Championship for lazy sign making?

Donut Partol! Hilarious. There was signs up for some kind of contest winners getting to decorate these spaces. So win a contest, and you can insult law enforcement if you want to.

Super wow, what a college-level lounge area. Are we sure this is a High School? My friend does not remember this being here. Any of this.

Neat Falcon. That's the school mascot. The Cox Falcons. It would be creepy if I was just walking around the old school, but we're out riding a bike so... Exercise! And now we're all cool with it.

My friend tells a story where there was a school assembly and a motivational speaker rallied the crowd to chant "I am Somebody." Again! "I am... Somebody." eventually the entire school was screaming "I AM... SOMEBODY!" and it was quite epic. They must have made it a repeated thing, to see this dolphin etched with the mantra.

This parking lot next to the school has traffic lines on it, for driving educational purposes. My friend says it was quite a treat to take this as an actual class in school. It was so different than learning math or social studies. You're driving a car? In school?!

My friend also remembers this soccer field where he was nailed in the face with a stray ball, and waking up in the nurse's office. Can you have a memory of passing out? Ah, fun memories. Haha. 

There's a park down the street from the school. Here's a nice relaxing gazebo at the end of a short trail.

Here's the view from inside the gazebo. Nice view of some water just past this small amount of nature. How many nice lakes does this city have?

On the way back from the school I passed this place called Meowchi Donut which looked like some kind of cat cafe. I meant to look it up later. That's why I take some of these pictures. As reminders.

This was another different day, but we rode the bike in a neighborhood and saw this massive collectible. A real-looking Jurassic Park car. Now that's a fan!

We're not gunna take it, NO! We ain't gunna take it. We're not gunna take it... Anymore!! Whoops, that's Twisted Sister. This is Twisted Sisters, the cupcake place. I wonder if they are gunna take it.

Closeup of the Twisted Sisters cupcake menu on the side of the van. That's what we need on our bike ride. Cupcakes. Way to delete all the exercise we just got. But on the other hand, don't we deserve a cupcake for all the exercising we just did?

My friend has a fun story about how he and a friend got stuck here trying to canoe into the wind, until they were exhausted and had to call for help.

My friend's childhood friend and their family moved away a long time ago, but their dock is still there, further down the river. They went out on the canoe a bunch from over there.

Another different bike ride. This might be the ending of the most complicated card trick ever. Was your card.... The Seven of Spades?! Wouldn't that be neat if this was some kind of trick?

Here's that field in front of the Neptune Statue. That other time there was a whole party going on over here. Nice and quiet today. You can kinda see how not-huge the statue is.

The Dairy Queen is just as much of a landmark as the Neptune Statue! At least for us, as we always like to get one while we're here visiting. Well, not on bike-rides, but other times. You know what we mean. Basically just an excuse to get ice cream in a cup. If it's what we always do, we gotta do it! There's even another non-Neptune statue in front of it.

Here's a big pier with gift shops and restaurants on it. Most beach resort places have a pier with stuff. Check out this ramp. We coulda rode the bike right onto the sand.

While riding in this neighborhood, we saw some people gathered for a show, and discovered we arrived just in time! They were sawing down this huge tree! Look at the little guy next to it. In one more minute, we would have missed it.

There was a cracking, followed by a super-silence, a slow creaking as the tree tipped, another silent moment as it toppled over, and a solid thump of a boom when the tree hit the ground. It fell backward away from the houses. Those guys are pros.